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Ruth Yarrow — Touchstone Award Winner

Ruth Yarrow is a recipient of a Touchstone Distinguished Books Award for 2016 for her volume Lit from Within: Haiku and Paintings (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2016).

See the complete list of winners of both Individual Poem Awards and Distinguished Books Awards in the Touchstone Archives.

This Post Has 13 Comments

  2. Hi, Cousin Ruth!

    I’m glad I got your book before it sold out. It’s outstanding!

    I am proud to be related to you.

    Love, Joanna

    1. Although Lit from Within is sold out at Red Moon Press, if anyone would like to buy a copy, I still have some. Please let me know if you would like to have it signed or inscribed, and mail a check for $18.50 to cover the cost of the book ($15) and mailing envelope and postage ($3.50) to PO Box 297, Ithaca, NY 14851. Thanks, Ruth

      2. Hi Ruth!
        I would love a signed copy of your book. I will put a check in the mail tomorrow. Love to you all from Seattle!
        Kris

    1. Thank you Mary! I just discovered this Touchstone site and great to have your immediate warm response!

  5. I’m wondering if ruth yarrow is related to Mike Yarrow who worked at the AFSC in San Francisco with my Dad Stephen Thiermann.
    I noticed “Quaker” references and thought maybe so.
    I bought your book and enjoyed reading it over two weeks or so with my cup of morning coffee. Thank you Ruth.

    1. Hello Jennifer! Thanks for your appreciation of my book! Yes, both my husband Mike Yarrow and my Dad-in-law, (known as Mike (nickname) Yarrow) worked with the AFSC. My Mike worked out of Philly and Seattle on some short-term projects; Dad worked with CO’s in CA during WWII, so maybe knew your Dad then? Later he was the regional director of AFSC in Des Moines and then head of the international division in Philly for years.. I’m guessing you’re a Quaker in CA? Thanks again, Ruth

  6. Ruth, I’ve enjoyed your work over the years, and this book is first rate. If I had an award to give out, you’d be a winner.

  7. Deeply deserving award.
    .
    I couldn’t find the book on the Redmoon site as of yet but here’s a useful book review by Charles Trumbull for Modern Haiku journal: http://www.modernhaiku.org/issue48-1/Review-Yarrow-MH48-1.pdf
    .
    Ruth Yarrow is not restricted to any one only perceived approach to haiku.

    e.g.
    .
    food bank line—
    a pigeon picks up crumbs
    too small to see

    At first a simple haiku, but it’s powered by technique and craft once you bend closer to inspect. The use of alliteration with pigeon and picks; breaking that up with hard sounding ‘crrr’ of crumbs. The ‘small’ and ‘see’ alliteration is deliberately in the background because the two T words ‘too’ and ‘to’ bring out the content and a non-judgement but chilling message.
    .
    Another word(s) on the tongue rewarding haiku and celebratory poem:
    .
    warm rain before dawn
    my milk flows into her
    unseen
    .
    .
    And again overt simplicity being used to pack a time-delayed implosion within the reader with this one line haiku:

    after the garden party [……] the garden
    .
    .
    Sublime!

    enjoy!
    .
    Alan

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